Each day, Islands High School junior Bonny Woods does something unavailable to all but a very few of her classmates.

She brings her dog to school.

Bonny and four other students at Islands are part of a pilot program in which they’re raising puppies that will eventually be trained as guide dogs for visually impaired people. The students keep the puppies in their homes and take the dogs everywhere they go, including to school.

“I never leave her at home,” said Bonny of her puppy Rianne. “I’ve taken her to volleyball games, football games, shopping and to family reunions.”

The five puppies being cared for by the students over a 13-month period are on loan from Southeastern Guide Dogs, a nonprofit organization in Palmetto, Fla., that depends on volunteers to serve as puppy raisers.

The students — all of whom are involved in the Whitemarsh Island school’s veterinary sciences program — are tasked with making the puppies comfortable in their homes, giving them basic obedience training, and exposing them to the world.

According to the Southeastern Guide Dogs website, “Puppy raisers take our puppies everywhere — to work, out to eat, on trips, and even grocery shopping. This real-world training imitates the experiences that our dogs need to successfully guide a visually impaired person wherever they want to go.”

Being a puppy raiser is a big responsibility, says Bonny, a resident of Wilmington Island.

“It’s like having a child,” she said.

Her fellow puppy raisers are senior Lainey Sharpley of Isle of Hope, junior Chris Allen of southside Savannah, and junior Breanna Glenn and sophomore Nathan Outlaw, both of Wilmington Island.

Their puppies — Rianne, Jack, Titan, Star and Allied — are goldadors, a mix of the Labrador retriever and golden retriever breeds. They were four months old when they arrived in Savannah from Florida in September.

Having a puppy-raiser program at Islands is the brainchild of veterinary sciences teacher Elise Zador, who is coordinating the endeavor. The program “dovetails nicely” with the veterinary sciences curriculum, she said, and “the whole school is basically benefiting from it” because so many students come in contact with the dogs.

Elise learned about puppy raisers at an educators’ conference in July then approached Southeastern Guide Dogs about starting a program at her school. Southeastern has been providing guide dogs to people with visual impairments since 1982 and currently has more than 410 active guide-dog partnerships and 250 puppy raisers.

“It’s not unique to have high school kids as puppy raisers, but it is unique to have that many at one school,” said Southeastern media relations manager Jennifer Bement regarding her organization’s Islands High connection. “We’ve not ever had five all in one place.

“It’s a great idea, and we’re really glad they got in touch with us so they could do it. It’s a great program, and I hope it continues.”

In implementing the program, the Islands High students are using Southeastern’s “Puppy Raiser Manual” to aid them in socializing and training their dogs.

“You have to follow specific rules,” said Bonny of the manual and its “step-by-step, month-by-month” instructional format.

The dogs wear blue capes when they are “working” — developing the demeanor they’ll need as guide dogs.

That demeanor — the ability the puppies will need to ignore distractions such as people talking to them and attempting to pet them — is crucial to a guide dog because, when it’s at work, the animal has to devote all its attention to assisting its visually impaired owner.

The puppies learn that they’re working when they’re wearing their blue capes.

After the dogs are returned to Southeastern next year for more extensive training in Florida, they’ll be wearing guide-dog harnesses.

That’s likely to be a tough time for the five student puppy raisers, who have already grown fond of their newfound, furry friends.

Puppy raisers are responsible for providing food, flea treatments and other essentials for their dogs, and that can cost upward of $800 during the 13-month program, according to Elise Zador. If you’d like to help support the puppy-raiser endeavor at Islands High, contact Elise at 210-0617 to learn what you can do.